Ilyenkov’s Critique of the Political Economy of Soviet Socialism

Despite the extensive literature on Evald V. Ilyenkov’s philosophical ideas, his political-economic thought has remained largely unexplored. This article seeks to clarify this lesser-known dimension by analyzing the political-economic models of socialism that he supported or opposed. Two models are identified: (1) Lenin’s, which conceives socialism as a transitional stage between capitalism and communism, and (2) Stalin’s—later adopted by Khrushchev and Brezhnev—which defines socialism as an autonomous mode of production, emancipated from capitalism and advancing toward communism. Within this framework, Ilyenkov reappropriates, elaborates, and updates Lenin’s model, identifying in the USSR of the 1960s and 1970s a confrontation between a state-capitalist mode of production (based on commodity value) and an emerging communist mode (based on workers’ administration). JEL Classification: B14, P20, B51, B41